


A Dry Well of Mercy

by Bunney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:25:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunney/pseuds/Bunney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unnamed Ravenclaw witnesses Draco Malfoy's last minutes on earth. For the Darkones "The Green Hair of Graves" challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dry Well of Mercy

In the end, he'd died like a Muggle, bleeding out in crimson chunks, his hands slick and stinking with it, failing in his effort to stem the flood of entrails onto the dusty, scorched plain. His wand, and that of his murderer, had been lost early in the battle, when the sun still blazed over the fiery ruins of Hogwarts and the rain that now fell from a midnight sky was still gathering off the Scottish coast. Denied a wizard's instrument of destruction, they had resorted to their hands and their teeth and the rocks on the ground, desperate to draw first, and last, blood. The killer himself lay nearby, long-dead and rigidly cold, rain sluicing through ginger hair and over bone-white skin, his freckles like grains of bleached sand.

I knelt beside him, thinking him dead already, his eyes glassy and filming over. But as I lay my fingers against his throat, even as bitter experience told me that no one with a gut wound as hideous as Draco Malfoy's would still live hours after its deliverance, he gasped and shuddered, his hands convulsing uncontrollably in the slimy, gaping hole in his stomach. 

Pulling away, as if he still posed some bodily threat to me, I stared wide-eyed at the mortally-wounded Slytherin. From a distance, I'd watched him over the years, passing through disillusioned childhood, to embittered adolescence, then onwards to corrupted manhood. I'd had no argument with him; we traveled in different social circles and since my blood was as pure as his own, he left me alone to cast his hatred at those he deemed worthy of it. For that small favor, I'd known relief; his wicked tongue and vile character were both something to shy far from and many of our fellow students were unanimous in their desire to not draw to them the Slytherin's unwelcome attention.

 

Even so, I felt nothing but pity now for this young man, left alone to soak the earth with his pure, red blood. When Voldemort fell, those Death Eaters left standing had fled _en masse_ , this boy's father among the first to escape the killing fields. Had Lucius Malfoy not even bothered to see to his son's safety? Had he not wondered where Draco was, if he had fallen in the fierce battle? What must he have told his wife? Did he face her with that calm mask and lifeless eyes and tell her he'd saved his own life while Draco was bludgeoned to death with a rock, which still lay a hand's reach away, dirt and maggots and blood congealing on its cragged surface?

A wet rattle issued from his throat then, red bubbles clinging to his trembling lips as he sucked in a shallow and hopeless breath. Unwillingly I looked down, as his partially exposed lungs struggled to hold in the oxygen. I wished I could cry, but the tears had been scalded from my eyes by the heat and grime of the battle. I'd seen too many die this fine spring day to dredge once more into the well of mercy I'd found to be drained and desert-dry.

Instead, I knelt on the damp earth, Malfoy's blood staining the knees of my jeans, and as his death-blinded eyes stared up at the unwelcoming heavens, I took one of his hands in mine and waited for him to die.

~fin~


End file.
